National Youth Workers' Convention 2005.

Picture the scene: An auditorium packed out with 3,500 youth workers from around the country, huge speakers blasting praise music from Chris Tomlin's and David Crowder's worship bands, watching skits so hilarious that we nearly pee ourselves, all for the sake of gathering together as people committed to Jesus Christ and sharing His story with teenagers.

This is what I have been up to the last six days. The 30-hour round-trip van ride would have been enough to make me crazy, had it not been for the wonderful company of the eight ministry folk who shared the van ride with me. Pastor Nathan and I zealously fought our way through Super Mario Brothers, Teresa and I took turns beeping in during Joel's time on his cell phone, and we all enjoyed sharing ministry stories of both hilarious and sad natures. It was like, a youth group road trip minus Corn Nuts and caffeine highs.

During my time in Sacramento, I experienced amazing worship music from several top-notch worship bands, jammed with my favorite 'christian-type' band--Kutless, and heard some amazingly challenging sermons and seminars from guys like Louie Giglio, Tony Campolo, Chap Clark and Mike King on topics such as "Worship," "Christians in Politics," "How to Last past Year Two" and "Presence-Centered Ministry."

My favorite evening, though, was probably spent in the company of no one in the Prayer Chapel, in which we were literally able to talk with God and listen to Him while sitting at the foot of the cross. The speakers and the entire tone of the weekend gave me so much to think about, that by the end of night four, I was skipping concerts and seminars just to give my brain time to rest.

The two biggest themes that stood out? The whole notion of calling...
who and what we're called to in ministry, and how that affects longevity.... and also the whole notion of being authentic and genuine in my interaction with kids. (photo on right is me, Joel, and Teresa pictured with Joel's affirmation he left on the wall for us. It read "Heather and Teresa are the coolest chicks I know (Besides my wife).")

I have no formed ideas to share really, other than it was a lot of food for thought and provoked a lot of good discussions with my eight PNW ministry friends on the way home.

And so, do I recommend Youth Specialties' National Youth Workers' Convention?! Um, if you've spent, like, five minutes with a teenager ever, then the Convention will be insightful. It's geared mostly for those working with teenagers in the context of a church, but it's not specifically designed for full-timers. In fact--it seemed like the majority of the seminars were geared towards volunteers in ministry.

And...with all the fun stuff and the free stuff, it's hard to think of it as a convention. It was like, camp for youth leaders. Nice.